• A GUIDE TO FAMILY DYNAMICS •
Welcome to DOLIF Psychology
DOLIF, the Distribution Of Love In Families, refers to the way parents distribute LOVE among their children.
After nearly 50 years of professional experience and longitudinal study through four generations
VERA RABIE
Doctor of Psychology
discovered that while adults operate through logical, Intellectual thinking, children act according to their Emotions, or the Mind of a Child.
We all once had the Mind of a Child because we were all once children. But we grow out of it. By following child-centered thinking, Vera Rabie, D.Psy. found that if we want to raise mentally healthy children, we must learn to accommodate the Mind of a Child.
She uncovered a secret economy of LOVE that is the center of every child’s world, but makes no sense at all to adults. This is how it works.
Every child instinctively competes for MORE PARENTAL LOVE than their next born sibling. As adults, we see this every day but dismiss it as “normal” SIBLING RIVALRY.
However, we should understand that children are constantly subject to their instinctual drives and at all times deeply immersed in Sibling Rivalry over parental LOVE, and that Sibling Rivalry, and not bad genes, is the reason behind (a) their strife, and (b) the vast differences we see in their personalities and behavior.
Yet ironically, in response to their children’s desperate competition for LOVE, without realizing it, parents end up directing MORE LOVE or FAVOR toward the sibling who displays positive social behavior, but comparatively LESS LOVE or DISFAVOR toward the sibling who displays negative behavior.
The irony is that children cannot distinguish between good and bad behavior, and both the well-behaved and the badly-behaved child act the way they do in hopes of gaining MORE LOVE!
So, how should parents DISTRIBUTE their precious LOVE to achieve the best results in their children’s social and behavioral adjustment?
Rather than discipline the difficult child, DOLIF recommends that parents change their own attitude, reverse the process of Favoritism, and DIRECT MORE LOVE AT THE BADLY-BEHAVED CHILD. This change of heart on the part of parents inevitably achieves a swift and dramatic improvement in the negative child’s behavior!
The effect of a change in parental attitudes is ongoing proof that DOLIF theory is accurate and that FAVORITISM or the way parents distribute their LOVE in the family is indeed the secret source of motivation for children who behave both well and badly. It proves that the parents’ attitude or posturing was the critical factor that led to their child’s negative behavior in the first place.
Dr. Rabie’s research shows that LACK OF PARENTAL LOVE or a Disfavored status in the family compared with a Favored next-born sibling is the root cause of most social maladjustment in adult life, such as mental illness, substance abuse or criminality.
*To read more, see the four phases of DOLIF THEORY.
*Also refer to the Blogs for real-life case studies of treatment and solutions using the DOLIF method.
ABOUT VERA RABIE, DOCTOR OF PSYCHOLOGY
I obtained my BA at McGill University, and Doctor of Psychology from the University of Montreal. I later worked in long and short term mental health settings, adult corrections, youth corrections, education, employee assistance and private practice.
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